‘There are other stores in and around Brighton, yes,’ he replied.

‘Is any of this relevant?’ Joseph Rattigan asked.

‘Very,’ Potting said. ‘If you’ll allow me to explain. Your client has told us he dropped his wife outside the Tesco Holmbush store at 3.15 p.m. on Sunday afternoon. That left her with a forty-five-minute window to find a means of transport and another Tesco store that stocked the same product. Our Outside Enquiry Team have established two other stores within a forty-five-minute radius that do. Neither of them sold any during that window of time.’ He sat back.

‘My wife must have got distracted, in that case,’ Paternoster said lamely.

Exton said, ‘I now want to speak to you about your visit to Parham House. You produced to the police a photograph that you said was taken on Sunday when you visited there with Eden. This would indicate that the two of you were together at Parham House on Sunday the first of September. We have had the photograph analysed and we know it was taken a week earlier on Saturday the twenty-fourth of August, around the same time. What do you know about that?’

Paternoster replied angrily. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, the photo was taken on Sunday, not the week before. I’ve already told you I was asleep in bed last Saturday afternoon, nowhere near Parham House. You’ve got all this wrong.’

Exton continued. ‘If that photograph was taken a week before, that means there is nothing to suggest Eden was still alive on Sunday, particularly when no one has seen her, she didn’t go to work and there’s been no social media activity.’

‘This is ludicrous, I didn’t kill her. How do we know she’s even dead?’

‘There is a large kitchen knife missing from the set in your kitchen, Niall,’ Exton said. ‘Do you know where it is?’

‘No, I don’t, and you can’t have looked properly – it must be in the house somewhere. If you’re thinking I used it on Eden, you’re mad.’

‘Is that what you believe?’ Exton asked. ‘You’ve told us about the financial background to your marriage and your understanding that if something happened to your wife you would be the main beneficiary.’

‘Like I said, we both made wills, leaving stuff to each other – isn’t that normal?’

‘Niall,’ Potting said, ‘as part of our investigation we’ve looked into your time in Australia – tell us about Karen Dale, your business partner there.’

‘Oh God, you think I murdered her? Seriously? We went into business together and it was going really well until the accident – it was a well-documented and witnessed accident. I was devastated because she was a good friend. I decided to come home, partly to get away from the memory.’

‘Came home with the money, then?’ Potting pressed.

Niall shook his head in exasperation. ‘Yet again you think I’m lying. Nothing I say is going to convince you I’m innocent, is it?’

‘From the evidence we have so far, you were in a failing marriage and in a financial mess. We’ve found bloodstains in the house, a knife is missing and there were two bags of cat litter in the utility room. In addition, your wife’s passport and rings were recovered and her mobile phone was found hidden under your bed. You seem to have lied about the photograph and your movements last week, and you have also lied about the barbecue. What else have you lied about?’